Bishop Finn: Law Should Protect Life

Expresses Support for Annual March for Life

KANSAS CITY, Missouri, JAN. 18, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph is asserting that manmade law should uphold and protect human life, and citizens have the responsibility to work to ensure this.

Bishop Robert Finn affirmed this in an article published today by the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Key.

He expressed support for the annual March for Life, which will take place in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

Each year since the Jan. 22, 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States, marchers from across the country have taken to the streets in the nation's capital in protest. The bishop noted that several buses of people from his diocese will be traveling to Washington, D.C. for the event.

Although the protest is traditionally held on the anniversary date of the Roe v. Wade decision, this year, since that day falls on a weekend, the March for Life will be held on Monday, Jan. 24, on a workday, in order to allow for the interchange of the people with their representative lawmakers.

"Almost 60 million surgical abortions have been recorded in the United States" since the court decision, Bishop Finn lamented, "the most horrendous taking of human life in history."

He added, "The numbers of abortions worldwide are certainly greater as other nations have followed our lead."

The prelate continued: "Manmade law does not, of itself, establish right and wrong.

"God grants his graces, including the inestimable gift of human life. Law must work to safeguard and protect this life, and to establish norms for the good order of society."

"If law does not honor the primacy of human life," he said, "we as citizens must work to change and improve these structures in a manner that secures man's most basic protections."

Monumental disgrace

The bishop urged: "We mustn't stop working peacefully, prayerfully, and within the legal structures of law to end abortion in our country.

"It is too monumental a disgrace to neglect or forget."

"No elected official or appointed judge is worthy of our support, if among their many acts of just advocacy they will not support the most vulnerable of our human race," he asserted.

Bishop Finn observed that "critics will sometimes suggest that 'pro-lifers' only care for people before they are born."

"The record shows that this is not true," he stated. "Our own Catholic agencies -- and so many of our parishes -- care for people at every moment, 'from the womb to the tomb.'"

The prelate added, "There is, in fact, no other private institution that does as much to aid people in need than the Catholic Church."

"And yes," he said, "we are among the most persistent champions of human life from its first moment until natural death."

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